Night of the Living Fet
by Invisible Ranger
Summary: Halloween oneshot treat. Awkward teenager Vasiliy Fet has been invited to his first Halloween party...but doesn't have a costume. What's a 6'6" guy to do on short notice? Dedicated to my Strain episode viewing partners, Ellie and Katherine.


Night of the Living Fet

By Invisible Ranger (HBF), 2019

Disclaimer: All Strain characters belong to Guillermo del Toro/Chuck Hogan; the rest are mine.

_Bushwick, Brooklyn, October, 1990_

"I can't believe there's no Halloween in Russia," she said for at least the tenth time since they'd gotten off the bus.

Vasya shrugged. He wanted this girl to like him, and didn't mention that he was Ukrainian, not Russian. "There is. Only little kids celebrate it, though, and it's in the spring."

Her boyfriend Steve, normally effortlessly cool in either street clothes or a football uniform, looked idiotic in his Batman mask. Vasya didn't mention that, either. "They're missing out on free beer, amiright?"

Nodding, Vasya internally winced. He wasn't sure how or why he'd gotten dragged into this. Either his desperate, hopeless desire to fit in with his native-born American peers, or the perverse masochism he'd inherited from his father, combined with a twist of peer pressure from Steve and the rest of the football team. He couldn't even remember Steve's girlfriend's name (_Sarah? Sherri?) _and made an effort not to stare at her pink Miss America dress and sash.

"What are you dressing as, anyway? Are you changing on the way?" Sarah, or Sherri, asked him.

"Hmm?"

She rolled her eyes. "Duh. It's Halloween. You're supposed to wear a _costume_."

Vasya looked down at his black sweater and jeans. "I am?"

"Dude. Seriously." Steve elbowed him in the ribs. "You could have just worn your jersey or something."

On top of all the cultural weirdness that had baffled Vasya while navigating high school in his adopted country, all these unwritten rules perplexed him even more. He'd just been asked to come to a party; no one had said anything about what to wear. "I could go home and get it," he said halfheartedly, then remembered he'd told his parents he was working late. Not an option.

"Hey, look. We could stop in that Rite Aid; maybe they'd have a set of vampire fangs and fake blood or something," Sarah/Sherri said, pointing across the street.

"Come on, big guy, we gotta make you look presentable," agreed Steve, tugging on his sweater sleeve.

As they entered, Vasya saw they were the only customers in the store, aside from an older Indian woman who _tsk_ed at them. The center aisle had been well-stocked at some point with seasonal items and costumes but was now picked almost bare. He picked up a package obviously intended for someone half his size with a grinning, clown-suited man on the front. "How about this?"

"If you want to stay a virgin forever, fine," Steve said with a snort. "Geez, they don't even have the vampire stuff, or those oversize glasses…"

"He could be a ghost. Like in the Charlie Brown special. You know, just throw on a sheet," suggested Sarah/Sherri.

"Where are we going to find a sheet that will fit him?"

As the two of them bickered, Vasya paused to look over the paltry remaining costumes. Pirates and fairy princesses smiled up at him inanely from plastic packages. Even if he'd miraculously found one he liked, none of it was going to fit him. The school had had to special order a football jersey for him, though his coach hadn't complained after he'd set a district record in sacks. Vasya was used to the world not fitting him very well.

"How about this?" Steve held up a plastic hook and a pirate hat. "Captain Hook?"

Vasya had no idea who that was. "I'll just go as myself. Nobody will notice."

The girl stomped her silver high heel down. "Nope. Not gonna happen. I think I saw a thrift store down the street. Let's go try there."

They left the disapproving Indian lady behind and ducked into the shop two doors down. If the Rite Aid had been empty, the secondhand store was a funeral parlor. It smelled faintly of mothballs and reminded Vasya of some distant relative's home in the old country. "Let's see if they have something that'll fit you," Steve offered, indicating a small section marked "Big and Tall."

"I'll go look for accessories," added Sarah/Sherri. "Let's meet back in 10. We're already running late. Worst case, we buy a king-size sheet and I put some eyes on it with my mascara."

Vasya had been in more a few of these shops. His mother, always pinching pennies, visited them frequently and had dragged him along when he was younger. He liked the slightly musty smell, the assortment of random oddities, and . And books. He could buy handfuls of books for a fraction of what they would cost new. His tiny bookcase at home was sagging under the weight of all the art and architecture books he'd collected over time.

_Oh yeah. A costume._

Americans loved costumes. He needed a costume, no matter how foolish he might feel. It was just for one night. Maybe, if he were lucky, Cara, the pretty girl from his chemistry class, would be at the party too.

"You could be a homeless guy," Steve suggested, holding up a ragged brown suit that had seen better days, "or a Wall Street banker." Another suit; stylish but dated.

Vasya shook his head. "I'd never get my shoulders in those."

"You're not much help. Work with me here."

He'd worn his share of castoffs and secondhand items over the years…his mother was always grumbling about needing to alter or mend things after they'd arrived in Brooklyn…but Vasya still had a sense of pride when it came to his clothes. "I just don't feel like they're me, you know?" For all he knew, the former owners of the suits could be dead, or in jail. Still, beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Fine. If you want to be Virgin the Clown, we'll go back to Rite Aid, buddy."

Thankfully, Sarah/Sherri came back before that could happen. She was grinning. "You guys remember _Beetlejuice?"_

Steve clearly did; he grinned back. Vasya had heard the name before but couldn't place it. "Isn't that a star?" he guessed, vaguely remembering some long-ago science class.

"No, silly. Look. Remember the football players in the movie?" She held up two faded, many-times-washed football jerseys in her gloved hand. "You guys could totally wear these. I even found some makeup."

A movie. Of course. Vasya had binged action movies since his arrival in the States. "As long as it's something, you know, nobody's gonna laugh at," he said, trying for the same kind of swagger his on-screen heroes used. He wished he'd thought of going as John McClain or Indiana Jones.

"If they laugh, they'll be laughing with you, not at you. Besides, you and I are gonna tag-team this one." Steve threw Vasya the larger of the two jerseys.

Five minutes later, he studied his reflection in the cloudy shop mirror. "Not bad," his two companions appraised. Vasya had to agree. He looked sufficiently tough, and slightly dangerous. A layer of cheap makeup covered his face and his blue eyes glared out of darkened sockets.

"This is from a movie? Really?" He couldn't imagine what movie might have had a zombie football team in it, but both Steve and Sarah/Sherri assured him the film had been popular.

"Yeah. Best thing is, if you end up puking, it's just part of the costume," Steve said, to which his girlfriend snorted.

"You are so not going to puke. Ew."

"You'd still kiss me if I did."

As he glanced one more time into the mirror, Vasya could barely hear the two of them going on and on. For just one night, he'd found something that fit well enough. In the morning, he'd have to come up with some excuse for his parents, and scramble to catch the bus to school, but it might just be worth it.

Though he wasn't dressed for the part, he borrowed Bruce Willis's signature line anyway. "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker. Let's do this," he muttered under his breath.

They paid for the items, and Vasya followed the two of them, still chattering away, out of the shop. The lead weight of dread he'd felt before was gone, at least for now.


End file.
